The Call of the Outback by Marianne van Velzen

Author:Marianne van Velzen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2015-12-30T05:00:00+00:00

20

Writing books

In January 1936, Ernestine’s agent, Curtis Brown, informed her that they had found an English publisher for The Great Australian Loneliness and urged her to finish it. The London-based publishing house Jarrolds wanted to publish the book for that Christmas.

Jarrolds’ most noted book, published in 1877, was about a horse and became one of the most famous children’s titles of all time—Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty. Ernestine was thrilled by the prospect of being published overseas.

British readers were fascinated by stories about their overseas colonies. They wanted to know what living in such remote areas was like and were eager to read the adventurous stories emerging from those faraway corners of the Empire. Ernestine felt sure that her stories about the little known areas of Australia, and its endearing and strange inhabitants, would capture the British imagination. ‘For me this might mean a springboard for the future,’ she confided to one journalist. People in Australia were by now very familiar with her articles and, although she had not quite become a household name, she was well known to the reading public. Being published overseas might bring international fame.

The book would largely be a collection of the articles she had written for the Sydney Sunday Sun, but she knew these would need extensive editing, sorting and some additional chapters to transform them into a publishable book, not to mention the photographs that would illustrate it.

It became a race against time. She always worked best at night, with her notes scattered across the table and her typewriter at hand. As she laboured for hours, smoking obsessively and only stopping when she could no longer type, her book started to take shape. Each night she would go on for as long as she could, first transforming her shorthand notes into English sentences with a pencil. She would often work until dawn and then, with her ashtrays full and her nails bitten to the quick, she would stumble into bed as the town awoke. Ernestine would later complain that the book had many imperfections: ‘It was all pushed (much too quickly) onto a small canvas and helter skelter from there on.’

It was May 1936 before she could send the manuscript to the publisher. The final typesetting took longer than expected, and Jarrolds later informed her that it would not be finished in time for Christmas. Publication would now occur in February 1937. It was a pity, but she had given it her best shot.

Of the 2250 copies of The Great Australian Loneliness printed, around 600 were shipped to Australia. The book was out of print in Australia by October 1937 but, although there was a lot of demand, Jarrolds kept postponing the second printing, arguing that more than 1000 copies remained unsold in Britain.

Ernestine was also disappointed at the price of her book in Australia. A reader had to pay 21 shillings, much more than for the typical local edition of an Australian book, which usually cost around nine shillings. She complained to Jarrolds,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.